Gear/upgrade decisions as 5.1 nears its end

Weeks after my initial distaste for the Operation: Shieldwall dailies (and my subsequent December boycott of them, so to speak) wore off, I did eventually start working on them. By the end of December, the areas weren’t such a cluster, and I began to make some progress with the faction.

Other than the ones in the mine, I found that I didn’t really mind the dailies. The beach dailies, while still a drudge, don’t have that combination of traits (“claustrophobic” and “cluster” come to mind) that made my initial opinion of the faction grind so negative at the beginning. And the story quest lines, which exist as primary lore elements – but secondary reputation ones – are actually interesting and enjoyable, for the most part. And since I want to see what happens, as always, with the lore, I’m determined to hit Exalted before 5.2 hits.

As it is, I did hit Revered yesterday after doing a flurry of the story quests that I had never completed after being interrupted while initially starting the one at the Brawl Pub…

Revered

And that presented me with an interesting gear conundrum.

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While I’m not terribly enamored with the Shieldwall Valor rewards for hunters, there is one hole in my gear right now: boots. I’m still wearing the Sha of Anger’s boots. Don’t get me wrong: they’re good boots. In fact, they’re good enough (and/or the Valor boots available at the launch of Mists are poor enough) that I had never been tempted to buy Valor replacements prior to 5.1. Indeed, I hadn’t really been tempted to buy the boots from Shieldwall, either; that is, until I started working toward Revered. Then, I started eyeing them, sort of from afar. Like, “hey, I see you there. Maybe you and I will hook up, if I don’t find something better…”

Ok, that’s not very romantic. But hey, after all, they’re just boots.

Anyway…

As I approached Revered, I started thinking about those boots. See, I haven’t had any luck getting an upgrade. Feng has been stingy in Raid Finder. One’Sock has been steadfast in his refusal to grant me any boots in Raid Finder. Feng has laughed in my face repeatedly during our guild raids when I’ve pleaded with him for boots.

With the rejections piling up around me, those “meh” boots – Odlaw’s Everwalkers – are starting to look more attractive. They are certainly an upgrade. The problem is, the boots Feng drops are a bigger upgrade, because they have a gem socket. For that matter, so are the LFR boots that drop from Un’sok, for the same reason. And I know that one of them will drop boots for me as soon as I cough up 1.75 weeks worth of Valor Points for the Everwalkers. I just know it. That’s the way life works.

So I looked longingly at the Everwalkers for a few minutes yesterday, and then decided to stick to my guns on this.

With 5.2, Item Level Upgrades are going away, presumably until 5.3, which is widely anticipated to be a 5.1-ish, “content” patch (as opposed to a “new raid” patch). The number of weeks away is undetermined, but it’s not that far off.

Therefore, I’ve prioritized Item Upgrades over the Shieldwall boots. As I prepare for 5.2 and whatever it may bring, there is a time limit on the upgrades, so I’m going to cap Valor through that time and get as many key pieces of gear upgraded as possible before then. This also allows for time to possibly pick up key upgrades like the Feng boots (has to happen sometime, right?) and the Elegon trinket. Hopefully, the boots in particular will drop, and I say that because the fight is easy and we will likely kill him every week.

In the meantime, my helm and legs will be fully upgraded shortly, and possibly two or three more by 5.2, meaning that I will have a total of 7-8 by then. Which isn’t too bad.

And then I can presumably buy the Everwalkers with Justice Points once the conversion happens.

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Thanks for reading this post by Mushan at Mushan, Etc. Comments are welcome!